“Yes.”

He lowers his mouth a breath from mine. “But do you feel us?”

My hands slide around him, holding on to him. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure you do.” He brushes his mouth over mine. “But before tonight is over, you will.”

• • •

The sound of the phone ringing on the nightstand permeates the sweet, sated state of my slumber. I’m immediately aware of the sunlight glimmering through the hotel window and the wonderful weight of Chris’s leg draped over mine, his hard body curved around me.

Chris reaches over me and grabs the phone. “I need the car at nine fifteen. Right.”

I roll to my back while he listens to whatever he’s being told. I stroke my hand over the shadow on Chris’s jaw, letting it rasp along my fingers before tugging a strand of his sexy, rumpled blond hair, which is all the sexier because I know my fingers helped create the disarray. Memories of the night assail me in a mix of hot and cold, ice and fire. The lovemaking had been nothing shy of amazing, but there is so much more to Chris, and to me, that I need to know still exists.

Chris reaches over me again and hangs up the phone. “Morning,” he says, pulling my back to his front, his arm wrapped around me as he nuzzles my neck.

“Morning,” I whisper. “What time is it?”

“Eight. And since we need to swing by the hospital on the way to the airport, that leaves us only about thirty minutes for a good-morning f**k.” He nuzzles my neck and his stubble is deliciously rough on my skin, the way he can be when he wants to be. The way I want him to be now.

I feel a pinch in my chest, a hint of the ice returning. “I thought you might think I’m too delicate for such things.”

His hand slides over my br**sts, caressing my nipple, and a sound of pleasure slides from my lips. How is it possible that I never get enough of Chris?

“Why don’t we find out?” he asks, and he nips my ear, settling the thickness of his erection against my backside before pressing between my thighs.

“Yes.” I reach between my legs and stroke him, challenging him. Pushing him the way I burn to have him push me. “If you dare.”

He covers my hand on his shaft and leads it to the silky wet heat of my sex. “If you dare. Because, baby, just because I protect you doesn’t mean I’m not going to f**k you. I’m still me and I’m still going to f**k you in all kinds of ways you haven’t imagined.” He squeezes my breast and pinches my nipple and I hold his hand there, not wanting him to stop. His voice is as rough as his touch, both like sweet cognac that burns going down and leaves me wanting more. “I’m going to tie you up the way I painted you, Sara. Does that scare you?”

“No. Nothing with you scares me.”

“No?” His hand curves my backside.

I remember his palm on my backside, the erotic sting. The moment his thick c**k pumped into me, the pleasure. “No.”

“You should be.”

His finger slides down the cleft of my backside and I gasp at the intimate intrusion, and then pant. “Are we back to this again? You warning me away?”

He explores me from the front and the back. “Last night earned you one last warning. One chance to run while you still can.” His lips press to my shoulder, teeth scraping, nipping. “But know this, Sara.” His fingers slide deeper, between my cheeks, while his other hand teases my clit, flickering it with delicate fingers that contrast the near hard command of his voice. “I’m going to own you, body and soul. I will bind you. I will f**k your ass. Your mouth. I will do what I want. And none of this even comes close to where I’ve been and where I will never take you.”

My body reacts to the primal erotic promises, and I am hot and wet, and more aroused than I have ever been in my life. I fight the haze of arousal, the deep ache in my sex, threatening to become an orgasm. He’s testing me, trying to scare me, and it twists me in knots to know it’s because last night made him doubt me and us.

“This is who I am, Sara. I will protect you from everything and everyone else, but I can’t protect you from who I am or who we will be if you stay with me.”

“I know who you are,” I whisper, and I am more clear of mind than I have been in a very long time. I need him. I’ve needed him from the moment I first met him. Even then, that first night, I felt free to let go with him, to be me, when I didn’t even recognize me. “But you need to know this, Chris. I know who I am now, too. I know what I need to stay with you. If you own my body, I own yours.” I’ve walked away from too much to be willing to settle for less than everything now.

His body stiffens, tension rippling through his muscles. Anger and hurt spike in my chest and I try to turn. He holds me, his arm a vise around mine. “You own as much of me as I have to give,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“No, I don’t. Not until you take me to those places you say you never will. I need to know that one day you will.”

Suddenly he is gone, no longer touching me, and I roll over to find him sitting at the edge of the bed, the muscles in his impressive shoulders bunching.

I scramble to my knees and reach for his arm. “Chris—”

The instant I touch him, he pulls me around into his lap. “I love you, Sara.” He strokes the hair from my face. “But there are parts of me that I hate. We don’t go there. We won’t ever go there. Understand?”

No, I don’t. But I do understand the self-hate. I understand the emotion. “I love you, too.” I cup his cheek and he leans into it, his lashes lowering, his jaw softening. “And there is nothing you can do that will change how I feel.”